Hunters Flock To Bear Down In New Jersey

By CHRIS HERRING

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989004575653023913552474.html

Nearly 7,000 hunters have obtained permits to participate in New Jersey's black-bear hunt next week, a spike of more than 57% from the number registered for the state's last hunt, in 2005.
The surge comes even as animal-rights groups sought to stop the hunt with a legal challenge that failed on Friday.

Some New Jersey hunters say the length of time that has passed since the last hunt drew scores of residents to buy permits. "It's so overdue, and I think most of us have felt like that for a while now," said Dave Worth, who owns the Cheyenne Mountain Outfitters store in Robbinsville. He said his shop, just east of Trenton, has sold "a ton" of permits for the hunt.

Ed Cuneo, president of the state's Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, said he expects permit sales to rise even further, citing Friday's court decision that will allow the hunt to proceed. "It's not something you get to do all the time in New Jersey," he said of bear hunting.

Officials say about 6,500 permits have been sold thus far and they expect to sell at least 500 more in the coming days. That's up from the 4,434 people who bought permits for the 2005 hunt.

The permit sales seem to signal high interest in this particular hunt as opposed to hunting in general. The 80,000 or so people who paid for hunting licenses in New Jersey last year is similar to the amount sold in 2000. But the figure is a far cry from the numbers in 1990 and 1980, when more than 125,000 and 175,000, respectively, bought hunting licenses.

Similarly, the number of license holders nationwide has held steady over the past decade, at about 15 million. That figure is off from the 16 million or so that were licensed in 1980 and 1990.

New Jersey officials said they were pleased with the sales of the $2 permits. "It's up appreciably, but we don't know why," said Lawrence Ragonese, a spokesman for the state's Department of Environmental Protection.

Bear hunts have become somewhat rare. While hunts were allowed in 2003 and 2005, the state suspended them for more than three decades starting in the 1970s to allow the animal's population to rebound.

And rebound they have. State officials cited the booming number of black bears—3,400 are estimated to reside in the northwest portion of the state, up from 500 or so in the early 1990s—in their decision to allow the hunt. They expressed concern that the animals had begun expanding into more heavily populated areas, increasing the likelihood of human encounters.

Doris Lin, an attorney representing the Animal Protection League of New Jersey and the Bear Education and Resource Group, painted the state's black-bear policy plan as sloppy and arbitrary.

"They're pretending that the hunt is necessary when the science they cite does not support one," she said.

A New Jersey appeals court did side with Ms. Lin in a 2007 lawsuit, finding that the 2005 hunt was commissioned based on faulty science. The ruling invalidated the state's bear management policy, which at the time called for an annual hunt. State officials in turn created one that called for nonlethal ways to manage the bears.

The policy has since changed again, under Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who as a candidate said he supported a bear hunt.

Participants will be allowed to shoot bears of any age and gender, using shotguns and muzzleloaders. State officials have said they seek to reduce the bear population by anywhere from 500 to 700 bears. In 2003 and 2005, 328 and 298 bears were killed, respectively.
Write to Chris Herring at chris.herring@wsj.com

Hunting traditions change as age demographics shift

By Hannah J. Ryan

Published: Friday, December 3, 2010

Updated: Friday, December 3, 2010 04:12

Hunters are beginning to see a change in the way their peers approach the outdoors as Baby Boomers begin to hand down their rifles and a younger generation of hunters populate the woods.

State wildlife officials have noted a growing number of cases in which young hunters are not practicing the degree of land stewardship previously celebrated in Montana.
Thomas Baumeister, Hunter Education Coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said a combination of demographic shifts, the targeting of young people by entertainment industries and economic challenges contribute to the transition.
The majority of today's hunting population is comprised of aging Baby Boomers, Baumeister said.

"It's not a matter of if they are going to drop out [of hunting] but when," Baumeister said. "And by the time a young person can hunt, they are hooked into other things, like electronic games."

Jeff Darrah, game warden for FWP, has seen a number of cases where it appears that young people are hunting with a "video game mentality."

One instance, he described, was one in which teens were competing against each other for how many animals they could kill.

"Ten points for deer, 50 points for an elk, a hundred for a moose," Darrah said.
Illegal hunts recorded on YouTube or Facebook have led wildlife officials to convict offenders.

In October, a Corvallis man was charged with allegedly poaching a trophy mule deer. Video, e-mails and text messages of the animal brought to wildlife officials instigated an investigation.

Darrah does not attribute these violations to a lack in hunting education. In the Missoula area, he said, nearly 1,000 people take hunter safety each year.

"In the early years, hunter safety was primarily about gun safety," Darrah said, "and now it's more about the heritage and ethics of hunting."

In Montana, there are 229,000 people that hunt, according to Baumeister, which is the highest number of hunters per capita in the nation.

Dale Smith started teaching hunter safety over 50 years ago in Hamilton. He said when classes first started he had only 10 students. Today, he said there are nearly 40 people, young and old alike, getting their hunter safety certification.

Hunting is always changing, Smith said. Animal populations grow, shrink and move around, and people are spreading into wildlife habitat. The number of hunters is not declining, but rather the manner in which animals are hunted.

In Montana, Darrah said FWP works to encourage young people to get out into the woods. This year, general hunting areas opened two days earlier for those ages 12 to 15, providing young hunters the first shots of the season. In addition, a hunter's first license is free, those under the age of 15 can hunt cow elk without buying a license and a number of wardens in Montana have taken kids out for their first hunts if family members are not able to do so.

For three years, Darrah has taken first-time hunters into the field.

"The kids are excited, I'm excited and it means a lot to me to help a kid get their first animal," Darrah said.

One of the hunters whom Darrah helped bag his first deer recently moved out of  the state.

"I didn't think I'd hear from him again," Darrah said. "But he called me this fall."

The teen was letting Darrah know that he had shot another deer and told his mentor he was still involved.

"It gives you that warm feeling," Darrah said.

Numerous states have opted to lower or eliminate minimum hunting ages to further encourage young people to hunt.

"In my personal opinion, carrying a high-powered rifle through the woods, the physical and mental ability needed to do so, and to do it safely isn't something someone younger than 12 years old can do," Darrah said. "Dads need to be getting their kids out long before they're 12 to teach them this."

The changes observed in the way new generations hunt can't be blamed on one thing like entertainment technologies, Baumeister said. Communities are aging, he said, and with today's economic changes, not everyone can afford the gear and time needed to go hunting.

"It's the societal nature of our time," Baumeister said. "We have high game counts and opportunities to hunt them, but it takes a hunter to make a hunter. This tradition has to start and continue in the family."

http://www.montanakaimin.com/arts-culture/hunting-traditions-change-as-age-demographics-shift-1.1818402

hannah.ryan@umontana.edu

'Perfect Storm of Injustice'? N.J. Man Serving 7 Years for Guns He Legally Owned

Friends, Parents Say Brian Aitken Living a Nightmare; Prosecutors Insist He Broke Law

By DEVIN DWYER

Dec. 2, 2010

When Brian Aitken confided in his mother during a moment of emotional distress last year that life wasn't worth living, he never could have imagined the words triggering a chain of events that ultimately landed him in a New Jersey state prison.

But that's precisely what happened, according to an account of the events by Aitken's father, Larry, and attorney, Evan Napper.

Brian Aitken, 25, a successful media consultant, had been in the process of selling his home in Colorado and moving to a suburban New Jersey apartment to be closer to his son, 2.

But on the afternoon of Jan. 3, 2009, the stress of a recent divorce and messy cross-country move caused him to crack. Aitken stormed out of his parent's suburban home in Mount Laurel, N.J., hopped into his car filled with belongings and set out on a drive to cool off.

Aitken's mother, a social worker trained to be sensitive to suicidal indicators, instinctively dialed 911 but abruptly hung up, second-guessing her reaction. But police tracked the call, came to the Aitken's home and greeted Brian when he returned to make sure he was OK.

Then, they asked to search his car.

Buried in the trunk, beneath piles of clothes and boxes of dishes, was a black duffle bag holding a boot box containing two handguns; "unloaded, disassembled, cleaned and wrapped in a cloth," his father said.
There were also several large-capacity magazines and cartons of hollow-point bullets.

Aitken had legally purchased the guns at a Denver sporting goods store two years earlier, he said.
But transporting a gun without a special permit or in a handful of exempt situations is illegal in New Jersey, giving officers no choice but to arrest Aitken and charge him with a crime. The magazines and bullets are also illegal in the state, experts said.

Aitken and his family believed the incident was a fluke because the weapons were disassembled and locked in the trunk, Aitken had cleared FBI background checks and even inquired about gun laws in New Jersey so he could be in compliance after the move.

"For quite some time I was pretty confident as soon as intelligent people with logical minds took a look at what happened they might slap him with a fine or something," Aitken's father Larry said. "When the prosecutor came down with an indictment, I was dumbfounded."

But after a two and a half day trial in August, a jury convicted Aitken of the charges and a judge sentenced him to 7 years in prison. So family and friends have launched a grassroots campaign to set him free, even appealing to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for a pardon or reprieve.

"It's a perfect storm of injustice," attorney Napper, who specializes in gun law, said
"Lawful possession of a firearm in New Jersey is exemption-based," said Napper, adding that moving from one residence to another is one of the exempt instances for carrying a weapon outside the home.

Aitken had been making several trips to and from Colorado between late 2008 and early 2009, his father said, ferrying his belongings to New Jersey where he spent some time living with his parents and other times living with friends while he found a more permanent dwelling.

"As anyone who has moved cross-country will tell you, it's a messy process," Larry Aitken said.

But the judge in the case did not allow the jury to consider the moving exemption during the trail, ruling that no evidence was presented that Aitken was actually moving at the time the guns were found. Aitken did not testify in the trial.

"The defendant's attorneys presented evidence that his house was for sale and that at the time of arrest he was travelling from one residence in New Jersey to another," Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, told ABC News. "Those points do not establish that the defendant was moving."
"This sentence was entirely and statutorily mandated upon this conviction," Bewley said.

Napper has filed a legal appeal in state courts, which, he said, could take six to nine months. He has also helped Aitken file that formal petition to Christie for a pardon or commutation of the sentence.
More than 6,900 supporters of Aitken have joined a Facebook group "Free Brian " as part of a campaign to lobby Christie to show leniency in Aitken's case.Aitken

All Aboard, And Bring Your Guns

Amtrak Passengers Can Bring Firearms On Trains Starting Dec. 15

By HANNA SIEGEL

Dec. 1, 2010

Starting December 15, Amtrak will allow passengers to travel with unloaded guns on trains. The new policy, a reversal of a ban in effect since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, is backed by conservatives and the National Rifle Association, and blasted by critics as costly and unsafe.

"Once this takes effect," said Daniel Vice, senior attorney for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, "you would be able to check, for example, a dozen AK-47s onto an Amtrak train -- and once they're on there, the baggage car's not secure like a cargo hold of an airplane."

Starting in two weeks, train travelers will be able to check handguns, shotguns, rifles and starter pistols at stations that offer checked baggage service, including the stations in New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

The guns must be unloaded and in approved locked hard-sided containers and passengers must declare their firearms and notify Amtrak 24 hours in advance. In addition, reservations that include firearms must be made over the phone.

Andrew Arulanandam, Director of Public Affairs for the NRA, says that anyone who thinks the new provision compromises the security of passengers is "making a bogus assertion."

"We think it's reasonable for people who choose to travel by rail to be able to transport a firearm for whatever lawful purpose," said Arulanandam.

Senator Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who proposed lifting the ban, says he believes the original ban was unnecessary to begin with. "I think it was an overreaction based on I think some incorrect attitudes on the part of Amtrak and their leadership after 9/11 and frankly I think it was anti-gun, anti-hunter, anti-sportsman and unfair."

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 2:59 AM EST

Amtrak To Allow Guns On Trains

By Manikandan Raman

Want to carry your favorite gun on train? you can do so on Amtrak as a new baggage policy of the rail operator allows passengers to carry unloaded guns on its trains, starting Dec.15.

Amtrak said it will be accepting unloaded firearms in checked baggage at stations and on trains operating within the United States that offer checked baggage service.
The change, which was enacted by Congress in Dec. 2009, brings Amtrak's firearms policy in line with air travel rules that permit unloaded guns to be stored in locked baggage holds.

Passengers are required inform Amtrak and declare that they will be checking firearms and/or ammunition by calling Amtrak at 800-USA-RAIL no later than 24 hours before train departure.

Reservations for firearms or ammunition can be made only by calling the Amtrak reservations number as online reservations are not accepted, an Amtrak release says.
All firearms (rifles, shotguns, handguns, starter pistols) must be unloaded and in an approved, locked hard-sided container. The passenger must have sole possession of the key or the combination for the lock to the container.

Locked, hard-sided containers containing smaller unloaded firearms such as handguns and starter pistols must be securely stored within a suitcase or other item of checked baggage. Rifles and shotguns will be stored in secure cabinets or areas of train stations and baggage cars.  All passengers must complete a firearms declaration form prior to beginning travel on the day of departure.

Amtrak, which spent about $2 million to implement this service program, made changes to its reservation system, installed secure storage at checked baggage train stations and modified 142 baggage cars to improve and secure firearm transport.
As not all Amtrak served stations or trains offer checked baggage service, Amtrak has urged passengers seeking to travel with their firearms to confirm which stations and trains offer checked baggage service.

Washington-based Amtrak is a government-owned corporation to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. The Amtrak Auto Train holds the distinction as the longest passenger train in the world, with two locomotives and 40-plus passenger rail cars and vehicle carriers operating daily to Lorton in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Last fiscal year (FY 2010), the railroad carried 28.7 million passengers, making it the best year in the company's history. With 21,000 route miles in 46 states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian provinces, Amtrak operates more than 300 trains each day.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/87367/20101201/amtrak-guns-on-train-guns-on-trains-railcar-railroad-passenger-train-firearms-baggage.htm

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2010/nov/30/ed-hinkle30-ar-683380/

Published: November 30, 2010

Hinkle: Gun-Control Logic Is Plumb Loko

By A. BARTON HINKLE/Richmond Times Dispatch

Whenever there is a shooting spree," said William S. Burroughs, "they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it."

He got that right. Take a look at the so-called gun-show loophole. Federal law requires all licensed gun dealers to conduct background checks. The "loophole" refers to the fact that some people who attend gun shows bring personal firearms to sell. This, say gun-control advocates, provides criminals with a major source of illicit weapons, so it's important to close the gun-show loophole.

There are four problems. First, the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Institute for Justice have found that only 1 or 2 percent of offenders obtained their weapons from gun shows. Second, the activity at issue -- private, person-to-person firearms sales -- is not limited to gun shows, so calling it a "gun-show" loophole is disingenous.

Third, at least one proposed remedy would put all gun shows out of business. It would define as a vendor any attendee who brought a firearm to a gun show with the intent to sell it. It then would require gun-show promoters to provide to authorities the names of all "vendors" 30 days in advance of the show. That's like asking a seafood restaurant to provide in advance the name of every diner who orders crab cakes. It can't be done.

Finally, about 5,000 gun shows take place every year. Between 2,500 and 15,000 people attend each of them. The legislation aimed at the supposed loophole, therefore, would incommode millions of law-abiding people in the faint hope of producing a reduction in crime marginal at best.

Alas, that approach is not unique to gun control. It is becoming pervasive.

Witness the current approach to airport security. Instead of using behavioral profiling to finger likely terrorists, the TSA subjects everyone to invasive and degrading scanning and pat-downs. As if a 3-year-old boy with a can of Play-Doh presented the same potential menace as a perspiring young man with a glassy stare wearing a bulky coat and chanting under his breath.

Witness also the recent paroxysm of panic surrounding caffeinated alcohol drinks. After a handful of highly publicized hospitalizations in which beverages such as Four Loko were involved, several states banned them. The FDA quickly followed suit.

In a statement that ranks right up there with "the check's in the mail" for truthiness, an FDA spokesman said "we're taking a careful and thorough look at the science and the safety of these products." In fact, the FDA decision rests on only a few marginally relevant studies, including -- kid you not -- an Internet survey of college students, and another that focused exclusively not on pre-mixed beverages sold in convenience stores, but rather on cocktails made of vodka and Red Bull.

Don't imagine for a second this will reduce college students' desire or ability to mix booze and caffeine. Already, a YouTube video has surfaced showing how to make homemade Four Loko with malt liquor, caffeine tablets, energy drinks, and Jolly Roger candies. Nor does it affect other booze/caffeine concoctions, such as rum and Coke, "Jaeger bombs," or 60-proof Allen's Coffee Flavored Brandy, the top-selling liquor in Maine.

One thing the ban will do: Make it harder rather than easier for imbibers to know how much alcohol and caffeine they're ingesting. The contents of a can of Four Loko are well known: 12 percent alcohol and about 150 miligrams of caffeine. One 23.5-ounce can equals five beers and a cup of coffee. But the amount of alcohol and caffeine in a mixed drink such as vodka and Red Bull, or rum and Coke, will vary widely depending who's pouring.

As for the countless drinkers who enjoyed Four Loko, Joose, and similar beverages responsibly, too bad. They're out of luck.

Washington soon might be going after your medicine cabinet, too, thanks to the war on meth. Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum recently summarized that war this way: The government first "encouraged pseudoephedrine-based production [of methamphetamine] by banning or restricting other precursors. Appalled by all the scary, toxic, flammable meth labs that subsequently popped up around the country, it restricted access to cold and allergy remedies containing pseudoephedrine, forcing customers to ask pharmacists for them, sign a registry, and abide by quantity limits. Those restrictions, in turn, encouraged a shift to the 'shake and bake' method for producing meth, which is less complicated and does not require as much pseudoephedrine . . . ."

But -- surprise! -- people still manage to get their hands on meth. So now some public officials, including Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, want to prohibit over-the-counter sales of products containing pseudoephedrine altogether. If you wanted to buy some Sudafed 12 Hour or Advil Cold and Sinus, you'd have to get a doctor's prescription.
Roughly 1.4 million Americans used meth last year, and a sizable share of the product comes from huge labs in Mexico. On the other hand, 15 million Americans a year use over-the-counter cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine. Wyden's goal, then, seems to be as follows: Make life even more unpleasant for 15 million cold sufferers a year in order to shift an uncertain but probably small segment of U.S. meth production from a handful of small-time shake-and-bakers to big-time Mexican drug cartels. The effect on crime would be negligible, while the inconvenience to the law-abiding would be considerable.

In other words: Wherever there is meth, Wyden wants to take cold medicine away from the people who didn't make it.

You will not be surprised to learn he also wants to close the gun-show loophole.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should findin each man's life sorrow and sufferingenough to disarm all hostility. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

---

Contact A. Barton Hinkle at (804) 649-6627or bhinkle@timesdispatch.com.

Two 18 year olds challenge gun laws

by Matt Hamilton

AMARILLO, TEXAS -- As it stands right now you must be 21 in order to get a concealed carry hand gun license, but two teenagers in Lubbock want to change that.

They think if you are 18 years old you should have all the same rights as people who are 21. So they took the 32 year old laws to federal court, claiming the current laws are illegally restricting their rights to carry hand guns.


And people we spoke with agree saying if you can serve in the military then you should be able to carry a gun.

"These guys are going to fight for out country that's a lot of responsibility in the in the training in the criteria that's going to have to be established for those guys carrying the fire arm, so you know i'm not against it," said Steve Camarta the Amarillo Gun Club president.

We also spoke to a few people off camera who disagree saying they're actually against people have guns all-together. And that only law enforcement should be allowed to carry weapons.
.
No court hearings have been set yet in the cases.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story_print.aspx?id=547076&type=story

To hunt or not to hunt, that is the deer question

Makayla Silva, Staff Writer

Published: 08:43 p.m., Saturday, November 27, 2010

To hunt or not to hunt, that is the deer question

It is no coincidence the height of the white-tail deer mating season coincides with the start of the firearms hunting season in Connecticut.

Last week, the firearms hunting season opened in Connecticut and will continue through Dec. 9.

With no natural predators, deer have slipped out of their ecological niche and now thrive in Fairfield County suburbia.

In the absence of significant mortality, deer populations can double in size in two years, according to Howard Kilpatrick, a biologist in the Department of Environmental Protection's Wildlife Division.

Though non-lethal methods like fencing and taste-based repellents might prove successful in some yards, Kilpatrick said successful deer management ultimately lies with hunting.

"Birth control is a possible solution for small, isolated, deer populations. It's not an option for deer in Fairfield County," he said. "It has the highest deer population in the state."

And, while deer repellents like Deer Stopper can protect an individual plant from becoming lunch, they will not reduce the deer population, Kilpatrick said.

"As more lands have been opened for hunting, and as we continue to liberalize the hunting season and allow more hunters to harvest more deer, we've started to see a downward trend in deer population," he said.

In Fairfield County, there is no limit on how many deer a hunter can harvest, and hunters are able to use bait to attract deer.

"There are now more deer harvested in Fairfield County than any other deer management zone," Kilpatrick said.

A study released at the beginning of the deer-hunting season by New York Medical College, sponsored by the Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance, suggested that deer munch away at a year-round salad bar destroying the landscape in the process.

Based on a 2003 deer-damage survey of residential properties in Bernards Township, N.J., the study found the annual projected costs of landscape destruction to reach $13.4 million in Fairfield County last year.

Deer overpopulation was projected to incur as much as $17 million in damages in some towns and up to $1,520 per household last year.

The Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance, a consortium that tries to raise awareness on the issue of deer overpopulation in Fairfield County, has recommended reducing the number of deer to 10 to 12 deer per square mile to lessen the economic impact on towns. Current estimates place the number of deer per square mile in Fairfield County at 60.

Reaching this target, however, poses the challenge of developing a comprehensive plan to reduce the deer population.

Although fencing and birth control are non-lethal remedies, hunting is considered the most effective means of removal that is both cost-effective and immediate by state agencies.

"I don't know that recreational hunting by itself is enough to reach the goal of 10-12 deer per square mile so that we have highly structural complex forest with a lot of biodiversity," Steve Patton, director of landscape programs at the Connecticut Nature Conservancy, said.

The DEP Wildlife Division recommends the use of regulated and controlled hunts to efficiently reduce and maintain deer populations.

In Weston, the Devil's Den Preserve, owned by the Nature Conservancy, launched its first controlled hunt 10 years ago.

Patton said because there was an overabundance of deer in the preserve, the forest experienced a significant reduction in the amount of regeneration of forest and shrubs.

"We are now, 10 years later, beginning to see some changes in the reduction of deer," Patton said. "It takes twice as long for a hunter to find a deer to kill because there are fewer deer and we are seeing regeneration of herbaceous species in places where they did not occur 10 years ago because of deer over browsing."

Still, Patton suggests implementing further incentives for hunters in southwestern Connecticut.

"Important for consideration is having a commercial market for venison," he said. "During a market season, hunters could sell their venison to a restaurant or a grocery in addition to providing deer to soup kitchens. That way they can enjoy a financial return for their hunting."

Deer hunting-related expenditures contributed significantly to the state's economy last year.

Deer permit sales generated $932,332 in 2008 and $840,606 in 2009 to the Connecticut General Fund, according to the 2009 DEP Connecticut Deer Program Summary.

Even more, Connecticut deer hunters spent an estimated $10 million on deer hunting related-goods and services in 2009.

Yet Priscilla Feral, president of the Darien-based Friends of Animals advocacy group, said hunting is actually losing its appeal in the state, with less than 1 percent of Connecticut residents who are active hunters. "Hunting is on the wane, and that's a triumph," she said. "Young people are opting out of hunting as a recreation, they have other things to do, with iPods and everything."

She said the roughly 30,000 registered hunters backed by the DEP, have a stranglehold on the way the state thinks about hunting.

"It's all a terrible propaganda campaign. They try to create animosity toward white-tailed deer," Feral said.

"I do not think deer need to be called overpopulated. There is an overpopulation of people. You can't continue to carve up their habitat and force them close to homes and then claim there are too many of them. It's outrageous."

Guns-in-bars opponents welcome NRA's wallets

Commentary by Gail Kerr • THE TENNESSEAN • November 28, 2010

Irony, thy name is NRA convention.

 

Two of Nashville's top tourism officials — men who used their powerful voices to fight guns in bars for fear it would damage Music City's image among visitors — are now first in line to welcome a 50,000-member convention of the National Rifle Association.

 

Yes, the NRA is coming in 2015. It will hold its 144th annual convention at the Music City Center, now under construction. The convention will bring Nashville up to $25 million in spending over three days.

And therein lies the interesting rub. Butch Spyridon, president of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau, and restaurateur Randy Rayburn, former chairman of the group that rallied to build the new convention center, are its biggest cheerleaders.

 

Both chuckled at the irony but were quick to say that opposing the expansion of gun rights is not counterintuitive to making deals to get the nation's strongest gun rights supporter to come to town.

"It doesn't change the fact that I think guns and alcohol don't mix," Spyridon said. "Our job is to fill hotel rooms. I'm a decent sales guy. The first time I met the NRA guy, I told him, 'We are the right market for this.' "
Rayburn added: "If I don't get a single diner from the NRA, so what? It will benefit all the rest of Nashville. What raises the tide in the harbor helps all boats."

'The demographics fit'

Rayburn, owner of such Nashville icons as Sunset Grill and Midtown Cafe, filed a lawsuit with nine other people asserting that a new law, sponsored by former state Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson, was unconstitutionally vague.
The law allowed anyone with a legal gun carry permit to bring a gun into restaurants and bars where alcohol is served.
The Nashville and Memphis convention and visitors bureaus opposed the guns-in-bars bill.

"We've had individual visitors canceling their trips," Spyridon said then.
A Davidson County Chancery court ruled the law was indeed unconstitutional because state laws defining bars and restaurants are quite mushy.

"The heart of my worries," Rayburn said at the time, "was we are in the hospitality business."

Jackson came back with a cleaned-up law that passed. Permitted guns are now legal in Tennessee bars. An owner may opt out by posting a sign. Jackson lost his re-election bid, echoing statewide polls that show voters do not want guns in bars.

Has the NRA convention changed Spyridon's and Rayburn's minds? Both men say no. But they welcome NRA wallets.

"The NRA does a lot with country artists," Spyridon said. "The demographics fit."
Rayburn said: "More business for Nashville helps our community grow. It also proves to the bigger groups that our city can handle it."

As for whether they are concerned that NRA members will go honky-tonkin' while packing, Spyridon tossed them a back-handed compliment:
"I think the city will be pretty safe that week," he said.

Gail Kerr's column runs on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Find out more about her and contact her through her reporter page.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20101128/COLUMNIST0101/11280347/1008/OPINION01